Easter + DC | Part One

April 23, 2014

What. A. Whirlwind. of a Weekend.

Whew. I can’t even begin to explain how out of control our April & May are turning out to be. Bennett and I are trying to grow and groom our own businesses all while traveling for family, holidays, birthdays, weddings and business. IT IS NUTS. If this is how other people live, kudos to them and can I please get some pointers on how to get the proper amount of sleep?

Anywho. We had such an amazing weekend. Saturday thru Monday was jam packed with travel, exploration, family, besties, history, learning, sunshine and celebration. I thought I’d split the picture sharing into two different days because we took too many pictures and I didn’t want to overload one post with them.

I went from being a bad friend to being a slightly-less bad friend on Saturday when we finally made it to my BFF Jessie’s house. Jess has only owned her own home for FOREVER now and I haven’t seen it until now. Yes, I suck. I can come up with lots of reasons and excuses but really I just didn’t make the time to see her. Sorry Jess! Your house is great and I loved seeing you!

I’m not sure why, but my beautiful friend refused to be in pictures. So I don’t have any actual photograph evidence that she was there with me but I promise that we were together. She even was super sweet and took us out to get Easter egg decorating supplies so we could make them with Louis. Target had these ah-dorable pirate decorations that were necessary to get and use.

On Sunday, we took our time getting ready and then headed into DC. Jessie lives a little under two hours away from the heart of our nation’s capital and we arrived just in time to enjoy some lunch at some swanky place with Eric & Julie. It was delicious. And really good to see the newlyweds!

I’ve been to DC twice in my life. Once was for David’s inauguration and the second was for E&J’s wedding. During both of those trips, I somehow managed to see nothing besides the buildings we were doing things in. I never seem to schedule vacations with extra swing time to explore the places we are visiting. This time around, I was determined to actually SEE the city.

We drove past nearly all of the monuments and historical landmarks and eventually parked near the Jefferson Memorial and paid it a visit. It was lovely.

We picked the best weekend ever to be there. It wasn’t super crowded, I think because of the holiday, and the weather was awesome. We weren’t cold. We weren’t sweating. We were perfect. And when we did get a little hot from walking around in the bright sunshine, a breeze would hit us and cool us right now. It was like we ordered it up that way.

It was fun to see Louis react to different things. You never know what is actually going to strike the interest of a 3-year old. He surprisingly loved seeing everything. So did I. I never knew how visually pleasing DC really is. Being able to see the Washington Monument or the Capitol Building from anywhere you are is really neat.

I surprised myself with how taken I was inside of the memorial. It’s a beautiful structure but reading the quotes all over the walls really got to me. My favorite was this. Because, well…

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

Louis liked it because he thought the ceiling looked like R2D2. I can’t disagree either. I totally can see it too!

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom still while we were there. Which was awesome because they are stunning. STUNNING. Washington DC isn’t really that far from our house and yet they are full-force in spring already. We seem to be a few weeks behind. There were beautiful flowers everywhere and it was great to be around.

Day one in the heart of the city was super successful. I am the furthest thing from a city gal and I totally loved every second of our exploration. Who knew?